more than when
my ex cheated on me.”
“I swear, Gretchen.”
DAVE & JULIA 291
Gretchen let out a sigh, shaking her head at the ground and then
looking up at him with a smile of all things. “You make me happy,
Dave. And as pissed as I was at you, it’s been hard to forget that. I want you to keep making me happy. I want you to leave things a little better
than you found them.”
Relief washed through Dave, even before she took another step and
wrapped her arms around him, enveloping him.
“That was the longest you’ve ever held a straight face,” he said, taking a whiff of her hair, kissing her cheek, almost jittery with gratitude. His hands were shaky, and he felt his voice waver, as if he were on the verge of tears, not laughter.
“I thought you’d be proud of me.” She broke the hug and took his
hand in hers, then leaned in to kiss him. It’d only been a few weeks
since they’d kissed, but the pause in between had felt eternal.
Gretchen burrowed herself into his chest, wrapping her arms
around him tightly. “I missed you.”
He hugged back. “I did, too.”
People did not speak highly enough of hugs. Yeah, they had a good
reputation, but it didn’t really compare to how great they actually were.
People should be walking around hugging each other all the time,
amazed.
The sun kept dipping down into the ocean and the lights came on
at the harbor, casting sudden shadows on the ground, illuminating the
faces that were just a second ago silhouettes. The sky was golden and
purple, the ocean a darker shade of violet.
292 NEVER ALWAYS SOMETIMES
FLOAT
IT WAS A Friday night and Julia had not seen a movie in far too
long. Really seen one. She drove past the theater in Pismo Beach that
showed all the indie flicks and saw that it was packed, as she should
have known it would be. Her heart knew exactly what it wanted,
though, so she found a parking spot a couple blocks away, leaving her
phone in the center console, her earphones wrapped around it.
Julia splurged on some popcorn, since she’d brought a bottle of
hot sauce with her, a quirk she tried out ever since her mom had
mentioned in a postcard that that’s how they ate it in Mexico. It pissed Julia off that her mom still had this hold on her even after that whole
meltdown at the tree house. She should have been swearing off all
things mom-related right now, idolizing her dads, who lived quiet lives
but knew how to love. Except here Julia was, squirting hot sauce onto
her popcorn. Disdainfully, sure, but still.
The theater was mostly full, and she took a seat close to the front,
where the screen would take up her entire view and she could immerse
herself in the movie. It was one thing she and Dave had always
disagreed on, how close to sit. He hated craning his neck, she didn’t
like seeing the little silhouettes of other moviegoers in her periphery.
Julia munched slowly on her popcorn, trying to save most of it
for when the movie started rolling. She stared absently at the trivia
questions they played on the screen before the previews, questions
she’d seen on easily a dozen different trips to the theater, since before the whole Nevers thing began. Struck by a realization, she riffled
through the contents of her bag. Flip-flops her dads made her carry
around, just in case. Earrings she hardly ever wore, her agenda, a
couple of tampons, Heart of Darkness, still mostly unread. Her wallet, which was full of receipts she didn’t need. In one of the side pockets
she finally found the list, and she pulled it out, unfolding it. One of the creases had started to tear.
She’d used three different colored pens to cross off the items she
and Dave had done. Now she grabbed the simple black ballpoint pen
that was tucked into her agenda, used Heart of Darkness as a writing surface, and touched the tip to the paper. Her eyes passed over each
item, quickly recalling all the things they’d done. When she got to
number seven she laughed out loud. A heart-to-heart in the tree house
was good enough. She crossed out Never hook up with a teacher.
The only one they hadn’t thought to cross out yet was number ten:
Never date your best friend. She ran a finger over the subtitle that Dave had added on when they were fourteen: Dave and Julia’s Guide to an
Original High School Experience. His boyish handwriting was so much like her own that sometimes she found notes they’d written each other
and couldn’t make out which side of the conversation was